


until morning relights the way

by warsfeil



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Dream Violence, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: Riku has a nightmare; Mitsuki is ready to help comfort him, along with the rest of Idolish. Gen/no ships fic, brief descriptions of dreamed up violence!





	until morning relights the way

The stage lights are bright enough that the blood doesn’t look real. Riku can see himself reflected in the surface of the liquid, and it sinks in like clothing dye when he drops to his knees to skid forward. It’s slick as ice, and the detached cacophony of his surroundings are ringing, screaming in his ear. He can’t hear anything from the ear piece, but the ground is still shaking, an unrelenting roll of angry earth that’s steadily collapsing the entire arena.

“Tenn-nii,” Riku says, and he can’t breathe. Tenn isn’t responding, and Riku’s brain jumps to the assumption that it must be because Tenn doesn’t want him to worry -- but Tenn’s eyes are open, glassy where the lighting rig is covering him from the chest down, and his fingers don’t grip Riku’s when Riku links their hands.

“Tenn-- Tenn-nii,” Riku tries again, but it’s harder to breathe. It feels like he’s drowning, the thick miasma of chaos more stifling than anything else, terror blocking out any of the oxygen that might have been present before. The air is humid and heavy, dragging him down, leaving Riku wet enough that he feels like he really is underwater. 

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Tenn says, with his unfocused eyes, with his cold hands, without his lips moving, as the ground rolls like newly forming hills underneath Riku’s legs. “Can you breathe, Riku? Can you breathe?”

Riku wakes up with a half-choked gasp, cheeks wet and throat catching on nothing.

“Riku!” Riku’s bedside lamp illuminates the room clearly enough to show that half of _Idolish_ has already assembled into Riku’s room. Mitsuki’s hands are on Riku’s shoulders, a steady beating warmth that Riku struggles to process as someone _alive_ for a long moment.

“Where’s your inhaler?” Iori asks, and he’s moving before Riku can even reply verbally, reacting to just the way that Riku glances at his bag. Iori digs through it with careful precision, and it isn’t until Riku has inhaled the aerosolized medicine -- once, hold, out, twice, hold, out -- that Riku finally starts to feel the embarrassment slipping into the cracks formed as his terror recedes.

“Are you okay?” Mitsuki asks, dropping one of his hands and keeping his other one steady on Riku’s shoulder, an easy presence. He offers Riku a smile, and it isn’t dimmed at all from Mitsuki’s usual presence, the comforting all-rounder personality that helps bring out the best in everyone.

“It was just a bad dream,” Riku says, and wipes at his eyes.

“Here.” Mitsuki shakes his sleeve down over his hand and uses it to carefully wipe away the salty back roads that formed down Riku’s cheeks, and Riku tries to keep himself from flushing. 

“Seems more like a nightmare,” Yamato says, casually, dropping himself into Riku’s bean bag chair like he isn’t worried. The tension in his eyes says differently, the way he keeps himself from relaxing too much. The fact that he’s here at all in Riku’s room at -- 

“It’s three in the morning!” Riku’s voice is a little hoarse when he speaks, and he swallows, hoping that’ll go away by the time he’s meant to be awake for work. “Yamato-san, you have an early--”

“It’s fine,” Yamato says, waving a hand. “I’ll be able to fall right back asleep and be rested, don’t worry about me.”

He _says_ that, but Riku doesn’t quite believe it; he’s heard Yamato in the kitchen on sleepless nights before and seen Yamato drain an entire pot of coffee on his own when it’s still steaming, but Riku doesn’t feel like he’s currently in any position to be calling Yamato out for anything.

“Why’s everyone up…?” Tamaki’s voice is sleepy, and he lumbers in like a bear waking from hibernation. “Rikkun, you aren’t sick, are you…?”

“Should we call for an ambulance?” Nagi’s voice echoes, too loud even inside, though he looks properly chastised when Mitsuki looks up and lets out a commanding _shh_.

“I’m okay,” Riku says, letting his eyes drift down to the floor.

“You should see the doctor, in the morning,” Iori says, voice as critical as ever, but Riku can hear the worry in it. It feels like a crushing weight, that it wasn’t even practice or performance that rendered him so sick this time, but his own mind playing tricks on him.

“We have practice,” Riku says, faintly, and Iori presses his lips together.

“Take the morning off,” Yamato says. “It’s not the first time that someone’s been unable to make it. We’ll be fine for a day.”

Riku looks up, and then back down again. This late in the game, he knows that protesting isn’t going to do him any good, and he’d do just about anything to wipe the worried looks off the faces of his friends, and so he relents.

“If I’m not better, I’ll call the doctor,” Riku agrees, finally, “but I think I’ll be fine after I rest.” After a good night’s sleep, he thinks, but he isn’t sure how likely that is when closing his eyes makes him feel like he’s back in the dream, the stage roiling underneath him like a ship in a storm.

“You heard him,” Yamato says, before Iori can say whatever he was opening his mouth to say. “Let’s give him some space to get back to sleep, all right?”

“Do we need to do a handstand again,” Tamaki says around a yawn, and it takes a moment for Riku to manage to decipher the sentence. When he does, he laughs as best he can, raising his hands and waving them a little.

“Not this time,” Riku replies, and it helps the embarrassment a little, the quiet insecurity that he’s the cause of so much trouble _again_. It helps to quell the anxiety that’s been present since he woke up, since he was still dreaming. 

“‘Kay,” Tamaki mumbles, and that’s that; he shuffles back out of the room to return to his winter hibernation until the alarm goes off. Sougo waves, murmuring his own soft goodnight, and then follows after Tamaki, probably to make sure that he makes it to bed without falling asleep on the floor or getting sidetracked by pudding.

“If you need something to help you sleep,” Nagi offers, voice carefully pitched down to avoid any more of Mitsuki’s patented glares, “I can lend you my Magical Cocona pillow! She is sure to give you only _good dreams_.”

“He doesn’t need that,” Iori says, in exasperation, while Yamato stifles a laugh that he pretends is a yawn when Nagi shoots them both a wounded expression.

“Thank you,” Riku says. Things always feel a little unequal, that his friends can lift his spirits so much when he feels like he isn’t able to do nearly as much in return. He might be the center, but it feels like that’s just an excuse for everyone to support him, some days.

“Come on,” Yamato says, lurching himself back to his feet and stretching like he’s an old man of seventy. He drops a hand on Nagi’s shoulder as he leaves, steering the blond back out of the room. “Hey, this way Cocona can keep _you_ from having nightmares.”

“Do your best to fall asleep as quickly as possible,” Iori instructs, like it’s that easy. It might be, for him. 

“I will,” Riku promises. Mitsuki is still sitting next to him on the bed, and Iori starts to turn, and then hesitates when Mitsuki doesn’t stand up or make any move to follow.

“I thought maybe it would be best if Riku had some company,” Mitsuki says, a little sheepish now that the attention is being focused on him. 

“What?” Iori’s voice is faintly baffled, like he has no idea what it is Mitsuki is trying to propose.

“Well, you know -- just because you never needed oniichan to chase away your bad dreams doesn’t mean that I can’t do it for Riku!” Mitsuki says with a gesture that’s a little sharper than he likely means for it to be, cutting through the air.

Riku, involuntarily, feels like he’s suffocating all over again, and tries to do it very quietly in the hopes that no one notices. The memory of Tenn staying with him, of cheering him up in long hospital stays and through bad dreams, is springing into his mind, at war with the lingering memory of the nightmare, and Riku’s heart aches for something he hasn’t had in years and something he’s terrified he’ll never have again.

“Niisan,” Iori says, “Riku doesn’t need you to stay with him.”

“It’s not a matter of _need_ \--”

“I don’t mind,” Riku blurts, before he can stop himself. He shouldn’t be quite so selfish, but -- but the thought of having someone else there, of someone’s warm arms helping chase away the dream, of someone else’s breathing filling in the darkness of the room… Riku doesn’t want to admit how much he’s missed that sort of thing. 

Mitsuki pauses in his sentence, looking at Riku, and then brightening enough that Riku could probably turn off the lamp and still manage to see everything. 

“...Fine,” Iori says, slowly, even though his face clearly says that he isn’t quite comprehending what’s happening. Mitsuki might be the ideal older brother, but it’s a little wasted on someone as independent as Iori, even if it looks like Iori might be reconsidering that self-sufficiency. “Stay to make sure he doesn’t have another attack.”

“I’ll really be okay!” Riku insists, trying his best to give the most reassuring smile he possibly can. Iori, as usual, gives off the impression that he can see right through Riku, but Riku is so used to that by now that it doesn’t make him falter. 

“I’ll check on you in the morning,” Iori says, turning away to go out of the room.

“Thank you,” Riku says, a little more quietly, once Iori has gone and closed the door behind him. Mitsuki grins back, swinging his feet up onto Riku’s bed like it isn’t weird in the slightest.

“You’re doing me a favor, too,” Mitsuki says, laughing a little. “I never get to act like the big brother, you know! Iori was always the one who would come into my room if I wasn’t sleeping well and tell me if I didn’t get a good night’s rest I wouldn’t be able to do well in school.”

Riku laughs, too, at the mental image of an extremely disapproving six year old Iori in kitten-print pyjamas. He sets his inhaler on the table next to his bed, hoping that he won’t need it again but not quite willing to put it away. It was just the terror, probably -- emotions can make his breathing worse, and he knows that -- but even just the memory has his chest constricting, his throat threatening to feel too tight, and he swallows to try and offset the feeling. 

“It’s kind of embarrassing,” he says, a little quietly, “to still have nightmares when I’m so old.”

“I think everyone has nightmares,” Mitsuki replies. Mitsuki doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of it -- the fact that Riku’s bed is too small for two people, let alone two grown men; the fact that they’re both grown; the fact that they aren’t really brothers. He lifts the blanket and tucks it around both of them in a movement that seems practiced, even if Riku can’t think of how. “When you’re older, your nightmares just get even worse, and you don’t want to talk about them. It isn’t the same as running from the monster in the closet.”

When Riku was a child, Tenn would dutifully check under the bed, inside the closet, outside of the window to make sure that there were no monsters. Riku got older, and he got used to the idea of ghosts haunting the hallways, of things he couldn’t understand hiding out of sight from all but the most frail, and he stopped talking about it so much -- and then Tenn was gone, out of his life, and Riku stopped trying to check for monsters, because nothing could ever be as scary as the idea of not understanding his twin.

Dreaming about monsters definitely would have been better than dreaming about people he loves dying.

“Anyway,” Mitsuki continues, fluffing up Riku’s pillow like an absolute professional. “Being able to ask for help, or accept comfort -- that’s pretty mature.”

Mitsuki’s way with words isn’t the most elegant, but somehow, they wrap around Riku as firmly as the blanket. They steadily chase away the lingering nightmare, the phantom feeling of slick blood on Riku’s hands, the grating feeling of despair in his chest.

“I think everyone here has nightmares,” Mitsuki says, a little softly. He looks down at his hands against the fabric of the blanket, and Riku wonders what kind of nightmares Mitsuki must have. Yamato and Sougo and Tamaki and Iori and Nagi -- surely, they all have their own private nightmares, their own terrors that chase them in the dark when there isn’t anyone else around.

“Not everyone has to be looked after,” Riku says, a little more quietly than he means to. It isn’t a bad thing, to have friends to rely on, but he still feels like it’s always him that needs it, and the fear of being a burden is so ingrained on him that he thinks it might be engraved on his soul.

“I bet,” Mitsuki says, “that even your brother has nightmares, sometimes.”

“Tenn-nii?” 

“Yeah,” Mitsuki continues, flashing Riku a smile that migrates into a mountain of a yawn. Riku doesn’t mean to, but his own yawn answers Mitsuki’s, and he realizes just how exhausted he still is. “Ugh, sorry -- I had more to say about it, like how I bet he’d comfort you and wouldn’t mind it, but maybe we should talk about it in the morning?”

“Yeah,” Riku agrees, and he settles down into bed, flicking off the main light. Mitsuki doesn’t settle down next to him, exactly; he stays half upright for a long minute, and then reaches out, gently carding his fingers through Riku’s hair.

“Once when Iori had the flu,” Mitsuki says, and his voice is a whisper, almost conspiratory, “he was so sick that I didn’t want to leave him alone, and he didn’t even ask me to. I did this until he was asleep.”

“Did you?” Riku’s voice is just as quiet, but not because he’s afraid of being overheard -- it’s just comforting, to be touched like this, to be so casually cared for. A part of it makes his heart ache, but that part is so worn that he doesn’t even notice it as much, anymore. 

“I’d sing him all of Zero’s old songs,” Mitsuki says, “and every so often he’d wake up to tell me I was off key before he fell back asleep.”

Riku tries to say that it sounds just like Iori to criticize someone’s singing while sick, but the words don’t quite make it out. His mouth has decided that he’s too tired to form words, and he just exhales, instead, eyes fluttering closed.

He falls asleep to Mitsuki humming their songs, instead.

Riku doesn’t remember his dreams after that.

**Author's Note:**

> written as a commission while i cried about how good of a boy riku nanase is.


End file.
